


gray lace

by thesemovingparts



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Angst, Cheating, Childhood Friends, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian AU, Runaway Bride, idk man they're doing their best, indiana gals, messy break ups and messy relationships, midwestern purgatory, small town weddings, vaguely a frame story ft. flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 15:51:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15270924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesemovingparts/pseuds/thesemovingparts
Summary: “Do you think I can use that stationary we bought to write up apology notes?” Trixie snorted, fingers fiddling with the tulle of her skirt, once white and now a very distinct shade of mud brown.“You don’t have to fucking apologize to--”“Don’t you think?” Trixie cut off what she was sure was about to be a lengthy rant from Katya. “I left a guy at the altar, Kat. I have plenty to be fucking sorry for.”***Trixie Mattel is a runaway bride and it won't stop fucking raining.





	gray lace

**Author's Note:**

> oh hey!
> 
> i recently wrote a pretty lengthy multi-chaptered fic and wanted to challenge myself to write a full story in under 10k words for the heck of it, so here we are with 10.6k which is... close enough. 
> 
> this is a concept i wrote in like a 500 word drabble for a different fandom ages ago and i wanted to make it less Bad, so i hope you like it <3 
> 
> (as always, an eternal thank you to adoredykelano on tumblr for being the literal best and helping me make words happen)

 

Trixie Mattel’s toes were cold.

So cold, in fact, that the sensation of it was all she could think about as she stared at her bare feet against the rough gravel beneath them. Her now-empty shoes sat discarded in the gutter next to her, soaked through with rain water and heels covered in two inches of mud where they had sunk into the dirt on her way out the door, across the lawn, and four blocks away where she now sat.

With cold toes.

Trixie was in a town that she had figured would always be her home, but felt so far from it at the same time. The hem of her dress was heavy with muddy rainwater, the bodice of once-white, now-gray lace clinging to her skin and stretching uncomfortably across her chest with every heaving breath she took.

She reached behind her and desperately pulled at the tight laces around her corseted waist, tugging them loose enough that she could at least breathe a little bit easier.

Because she was far from home and her toes were cold, so according to karma she should get at least _one_ thing going in her favor, right?

The thought crossed her mind momentarily that she probably should have been crying. Everything she had known about her life was suddenly crumbling around her, she had nowhere to go and no one to call her own, and it was all her fault.

The whole storm of everything was entirely her fault.

Trixie pulled pins out of her hair and dropped them in the gutter beside her feet, letting the rushing water from the earlier rainstorm carry them away. She listened to the faint clinking chorus as they struck metal and concrete.

She tugged a single white flower from her hair, hard enough that a few strands came out in her fingers alongside it and left her scalp stinging. It almost didn’t even look out of place next to the fast food cup and soggy paper bag it ended up next to when she dropped it without a second thought.

She hadn’t even known it was supposed to rain that day, but her toes sure were fucking freezing and this sure wasn’t how she had expected everything to go down.

 

_“I want to wear a pink dress,” Trixie said, eight years old and buried in a toppling blanket fort._

_“I wanna wear a hot dog suit!”_

_“Katya!” Trixie screamed, laughing as her best friend sat across from her, bouncing on saved up energy from their day at school. “You can’t dress up like a hot dog on your wedding day!”_

_“Who says?” Katya furrowed her tiny brow, almost hidden beneath bangs that she was in the process of growing out but refused to clip back so they were eternally hanging in her eyes._

_“I dunno-- Everyone,” Trixie rolled her eyes._

_“I’m gonna wear whatever I want to my wedding,” Katya said indignantly. “Oh! I’ll wear my Wonder Woman costume!”_

_“You have to wear a_ dress!” _Trixie insisted._

_“Yeah, but it’s supposed to be white and you wanna wear pink,” Katya said. “So why can’t I dress like Wonder Woman?”_

_“It’s different, silly,” Trixie said, not quite knowing_ why _she was so certain of this fact, only that she was._

_“I don’t care,” Katya lifted her chin with a broad grin, front tooth missing. “I’m gonna dress like Wonder Woman and carry a lightsaber instead of flowers!”_

_“Katya!”_  
_  
“Gimme some blanket, I’m cold,” Katya fell forward into Trixie’s lap and pulled the blanket tight around her._

 

“It’s freezing out here,” her voice was sudden and startled Trixie out of her self-induced stupor, but Katya’s familiar frame settling in on the curb next to her immediately put her at ease once more. Well, maybe not _ease_ , but something akin to the numbness of a coma.

“My toes are cold,” Trixie said, detached and still staring down at the asphalt in front of her. She knew that if she looked up she would just be surrounded by identical suburban homes and didn’t feel like absorbing that particular scenery on that particular day.

“You took your shoes off,” Katya stated simply. Her gaze fell to Trixie’s dirty feet for a moment, but rose to take in her face with concern once more just seconds later.

“I didn’t check the weather,” Trixie shrugged. “Figured I’d be inside all day.”

There was a beat of silence at that, and Trixie could practically _feel_ the way Katya was chewing on her words, contemplating the right thing to say in a way she never really had in all their years of friendship.

Trixie recalled grade school with Katya, being the pair that didn’t quite make sense when one was on high honor roll every semester and the other spent more time in the principal’s office than the library. It was safe to say it was out of character for Katya to be as tight-lipped as she was being in that moment.

It was also safe to say that Trixie knew exactly why.

 

_“There’s still a spare room available if you want to take it,” Katya said hopefully as she dropped piles of dirty clothes into suitcases without so much as a second glance._

_“Katya,” Trixie sighed from where she sat on the other side of the room, folding clothes neatly in an attempt to make the most out of the space she’d been given in her packing tasks. “I’m not moving in with you.”_

_“Come on, Trix!” Katya threw her hands up in melodramatic exasperation. “We’ve been talking about moving to the city since we were in elementary school. That’s almost_ twenty _years.”_

_“Exactly,” Trixie chuckled. “That was a long time ago.”_

_“And what? You outgrew dreaming?” Katya said with not quite faux-indignation._

_“I grew up! I got a job!” Trixie cried out with amused exasperation. “I’m happy here.”_

_“Uh-huh,” Katya deadpanned. “Trixie ‘I’ll die if I have to stay in Indiana past high school graduation’ Mattel is suddenly happy living in Midwestern Purgatory indefinitely. Sure.”_

_“Listen,” Trixie looked up at where Katya was sulking with crossed arms, no longer even trying to put up a facade of productivity. “I am so happy that you’re following your dreams and I’m gonna come visit you all the goddamn time, but I’m comfortable here. I don’t want to just give that up.”_

_“Y’know, I see your mouth moving,” Katya furrowed her brow. “But I only really hear Luke talking. That’s so weird.”_

_“I don’t want to have this conversation with you again,” Trixie said definitively as she stood up and made her way out into Katya’s barren kitchen, Katya close on her heels._

_“I just don’t understand why you’re still with him--”_

_“Katya--”_

_“You meet one guy in college who makes you feel_ kind of _desired and you turn into a housewife from the goddamn nineteen-fifties for him?” Katya continued unbothered. “That’s not the same Trixie Mattel that turned down four guys for senior prom because she didn’t want to be tethered to one dude the whole night.”_

_“Yes, Katya!” Trixie fired back. “Because I’m not seventeen anymore! I’m an adult with students who depend on me and a boyfriend that loves me!”_

_“But do you love him back?” Katya asked in a tone that was less of a question, more of an accusation._

_“Go fuck yourself,” Trixie rolled her eyes, opened the cabinet to grab a glass but slamming it when she realized it was already empty, already packed away in a box somewhere._

_“Trixie--”_  
_  
“No, stop,” Trixie said with loud determination. “I hate fighting with you. Especially about this.”_

_There was a beat. Katya bit her lip._

_“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” Katya said, softer than before, less accusatory. “I just-- I want you to be happy.”_

_“I am,” Trixie nodded to her._

_Katya gave her a look, one that Trixie was used to from years of having a best friend with a sixth sense for Trixie’s lies._

_“Don’t just say that to get me to shut up,” Katya begged._

_“I’m happy,” Trixie said with a curt nod. “I promise I am.”_

 

Katya took off her suit jacket and draped it across Trixie’s shoulders silently, and Trixie could immediately feel the body heat that had gotten trapped inside the sleeves thawing out her purpling skin.

“Do you want me to take you home?” Katya asked, voice cutting through the crisp breeze of a rainy day and finally breaking the silence.

“I was actually headed that way to begin with,” Trixie said simply. “Stopped when I realized he’d probably be there,” she chuckled softly, tone tinged with bitter humor.

“He headed back to Indy with his parents,” Katya explained. “It sounded like he was going to be there for a while.”

Trixie felt like her heart maybe should have broken at the news. She found it telling that it didn’t, wondered if she was actually heartless or if she really _was_ just that distracted by how goddamn cold her feet were.

“Do you think I can use that stationary we bought to write up apology notes?” Trixie snorted, fingers fiddling with the tulle of her skirt, once white and now a very distinct shade of mud brown.

“You don’t have to fucking apologize to--”

“Don’t you think?” Trixie cut off what she was sure was about to be a lengthy rant from Katya. “I left a guy at the altar, Kat. I have plenty to be fucking sorry for.”

 

_“What about this one?” Shea held up a mermaid cut dress from the rack and Trixie scrunched up her nose._

_“Ew, no, Shea,” she blanched._

_“Picky cunt,” Shea laughed as she hung the dress back up._

_“I’m the bride, I’m allowed to be a cunt!” Trixie teased, tossing her long hair over her shoulder dramatically._

_“Oh, you were a cunt long before you were a bride,” Katya said, sending Trixie spinning on her heel and grinning wide, wider than she had in some time._

_“Bitch!” Trixie immediately pulled Katya into a tight hug. “I missed you,” she said, rocking them back in forth as Katya hugged her back with equal enthusiasm. And then, softer: “I thought you weren’t gonna make it.”_

_“How could I miss getting to see Trixie Mattel critique every wedding dress designer both living and dead before she ultimately decides to make her own?” Katya teased, sending Trixie into almost immediate hysterics._

_“I’m not making my own wedding dress,” Trixie cackled. “I’m not that much of a control freak.”_

_“Are you sure?” Katya smirked, granting a light slap to the arm from Trixie who couldn’t stop grinning despite herself._

_“How did you get out of work?”_

_“Made it happen for my girl,” Katya shrugged._

_Trixie could feel Shea eyeing them from the other side of the room and prayed that her face didn’t look quite as warm as it felt in that moment._

_“What still needs planning? What can I help with?” Katya clapped her hands together, shocking Trixie with how ready and willing she was to help all of the sudden, after months of being actively and vocally against all things_ Wedding.

 _“Katya,” Trixie said, quieter and more subdued. “You don’t have to--”_  
_  
_ “Come on,” Katya brushed her off and placed a hand on Trixie’s upper arm. Trixie tried to ignore the way her heart stuttered. “I’m trying here.”

_Trixie bit her lower lip and nodded slowly, glancing around the room to catch Shea quickly averting her gaze with raised eyebrows as if she could avoid being caught eavesdropping._

_“We’re looking for something A-line,” Trixie cleared her throat, trying to keep her voice even despite Katya’s_ hand _on her like that. “Lots of lace?”_

_“Very femme,” Katya said offhandedly as she stepped away and began searching through racks of dresses. Trixie clenched her jaw and took a deep breath before she followed her._

_“And nothing too basic,” Trixie scrunched up her face._

_“What about pink?” Katya grinned as she caught Trixie’s eye across the clothing rack._

_Trixie smiled softly and a faint blush passed across her cheeks._

_“Bring me everything pink you can get your hands on,” Trixie said._

_Katya beamed._

 

The two women were silent for a moment as they both watched a puddle across the street being disrupted into ripples by the rain dripping from a small tree.

“Are you okay?” Katya breathed finally, voice quiet as she rested a hand gently on Trixie’s lower back.

“I’m not the one that got dumped on my wedding day,” Trixie said quietly, taking an unstable breath through frozen lungs that were still getting used to breathing without a corset cinching them in. “I’m always gonna be the bad guy in this story, Kat.”

“If it’s any consolation,” Katya whispered mock-conspiratorially. “I think it was pretty badass.”

Trixie snorted at that, a ghost of a genuine laugh escaping her lungs.

“Which part? When I broke an innocent man’s heart or gave my mother an aneurysm?” she raised her eyebrows and looked at Katya’s face for the first time.

Katya’s hair was wet and plastered to her forehead the same way she knew her own was. Her button-down and vest were wrinkled and her makeup smudged in places that it hadn’t been just a few hours prior.

She looked beautiful.

“The part where you didn’t let yourself get stuck somewhere that you didn’t want to be,” Katya said simply, wide eyes holding Trixie’s gaze as if trying to hold her attention, afraid that Trixie would look away, change her mind, and run back to that small-town church and give her vows barefoot. “The part when-- I mean, I guess when you figured out what you really wanted.”

There was so much genuine determination and sincerity in Katya’s tone, a profundity that made Trixie’s heart stall in its tracks for a moment.

Trixie took a deep breath and pulled Katya’s suit jacket tighter around her shoulders before she let her head fall to the side and rest gently on Katya’s shoulder.

She was right about one thing, Trixie really had stumbled upon what she wanted in life standing at the end of that aisle. Knowing and having it, however, were two very different things.

 

_“Katya!” Trixie called out, slurring her words and stumbling her steps across the room to reach her best friend. “Katya, I found you!”_

_“It’s my girl!” Katya called out with equal drunken enthusiasm, pulling Trixie down into the already crowded couch in the house of a friend of a friend of a friend who might have lived on Katya’s floor freshman year._

_“Are you havin’ fun?” Trixie asked, lifting her legs and draping them across Katya’s lap, who then wrapped her arms around Trixie both as a means of keeping her upright and keeping her_ close.

_It was obvious that neither one of them were particularly accustomed to being drunk, and that they were enjoying the warm, buzzing feeling in the front of their brains._

_“I’m havin’ s’much fun,” Katya said. “You’re a very good dancer.”_

_“Dance with me!” Trixie lit up, falling out of Katya’s lap and trying to pull her off the couch. “C’mon, it’s so fun.”_

_“Oof, okay, fiiiine,” Katya let Trixie drag her up and across the tiny house to the kitchen, which for some reason had turned into the dance floor. Maybe because that’s where all the booze was._

_Trixie refused to let go of Katya as they bounced and swayed and bopped on the offbeat of music that neither of them particularly liked but was loud and fun enough to keep them entertained in their intoxicated states._

_They were pressed closer and closer together as one song turned into another, into another, into another, and eventually Trixie had her arms draped around Katya’s neck and Katya’s hands were on Trixie’s always-moving hips._

_Everyone at the party was fucked up enough to be engrossed in their own little bubbles all over the house and in the yard and Trixie and Katya were right there with them._

_“I love this dress,” Katya said, pulling at the floral fabric draped across Trixie’s body as a slower song began to play over the speakers. Trixie’s cheeks were warm, probably from the alcohol, maybe from the way Katya spoke to her like she was the only person in the world that mattered._

_“Thank you,” Trixie said, pulling Katya a couple inches closer so their bodies were pressed right up against one another. “You’re so fucking pretty,” she muttered, not completely conscious of what she was saying but meaning every word of it._

_Katya looked up at her, Trixie’s eyes glanced down at smudged red lips, and then they were kissing._

_They didn’t have enough inhibitions left to let it even start slow, tugging at each other hungrily the moment that their lips met as if it was the only way to get through the night alive. Trixie’s hands wound themselves into Katya’s hair and Katya couldn’t help but grip onto Trixie’s hips and the sensation was overwhelmingly_ good _until the song changed, the room reset, and they both pulled away._

_“Holy shit,” Katya said, panting slightly as she caught her breath. “That was--”_

_She was cut off by a loud, painfully male catcall from the other side of the room and watched Trixie’s face turn beet-red._

_“I have to go,” Trixie blurted, pushed herself away from Katya and towards the door._

_“Trixie, wait!” Katya called after her._

_Trixie didn’t wait. She ran down the street with a pounding heart, having to turn back twice before she found her way back to her apartment where she could throw up and pass out._

_She met a nice boy named Lucas in her calculus class one week later._

 

“How did we get here?” Trixie asked softly, eyes going in and out of a soft focus as she continued to watch the patterned rhythm of that same disrupted, rippling puddle.

Trixie wondered briefly what ripples her own actions were creating at that moment, where Luke was, whether or not her mother was crying, if the universe would ever find stillness and peace again.

“I walked,” Katya deadpanned. “Pretty sure you ran, though.”

There was humor to her tone, a lightheartedness of someone that was actively trying to cheer her up. Trixie didn’t want that.

“Kat,” she said, tough and pleading all at once.

“Sorry, not the time,” Katya chuckled. “How did we get we get _where_ exactly?”

 _“ Here,”_ she insisted. “Me, a runaway bride and you, a useless lesbian.”

“Call Netflix, I’ve got their next sitcom premise.”

“I’m serious, Katya.”

“I know you are,” Katya breathed, placing a soft kiss to the top of Trixie’s matted-down hair. “But I really don’t know how to answer your question.”

 

_“Oh, Sweetheart, you look so beautiful.”_

_“Don’t you dare cry, Mama,” Trixie looked over her shoulder in the mirror at her teary eyed mother, ignoring the way her stomach was flipping at the sight of herself wearing a white veil._

_“This is just such a happy day,” Lucy said, choked up and joyous beyond all belief._

_“Yeah,” Trixie said simply, busying her hands with reorganizing her makeup on the counter in front of her as her mother took a seat beside her._

_“Are you feeling the jitters?” she asked, placing a gentle hand on Trixie’s back, right above the corset._

_“No-- I mean-- Maybe?” Trixie said with a sigh. “Can I ask you something?”_

_“Of course, Sweetheart,” Lucy said, calm and gentle and so certain in ways Trixie wished she could replicate._

_“When you married Dad,” Trixie began hesitantly. “Were there any signs that it wasn’t going to work? That it wasn’t right?”_

_“Oh, we’ve talked about this, Trixie,” Lucy sighed._

_“I know,” Trixie shook her head. “And I know you say it ‘just didn’t work,’ and there was nothing that could’ve fixed it but that’s not what I’m asking. I want to know if looking back on it all, were there red flags?”_

_“Well,” she hesitated. “I don’t know if there were red flags, but… There were times that I questioned it.”_

_“Really? Before the wedding?” Trixie furrowed her brow and turned to face her mother more head on._

_“There were a couple of times that I found myself looking at the relationships my friends were in and being envious,” Lucy said simply. “But you have absolutely nothing to worry about, Trixie,” she smiled and Trixie took in a deep breath, nodding as she let it out slowly._

_“Right,” she responded._

_“So don’t doubt that, okay?” Lucy grabbed Trixie’s hands. “You found someone that makes you happy, whose voice brightens your day, and who you want to spend the rest of your life with. This is a good thing, Trixie. You found a good one.”_

_“Yeah,” Trixie breathed. “I found a really good one.”_

 

“I don’t know how I got this far off track,” Trixie choked out, melting ever so slightly against Katya’s chest, the warmth of her body through her shirt thawing the cold of the rain on Trixie’s skin.

“I don’t know that that’s true,” Katya said genuinely.

“I fucked it all up.”

“You didn’t fuck up,” Katya paused, chewing on her words again, more thoughtful with her sentences on that day than she potentially ever had before. “Sometimes you just fall in love with the wrong person.”

Trixie took in a sharp breath through her nose.

“Right,” Trixie mumbled, thinking about the successful, attractive man she had literally run away from and the irrational direction her heart wouldn’t stop running towards, entirely of its own volition.

Katya’s head turned so she was looking down at where Trixie had fully collapsed against her, fingers pulling at an ever-growing tear in her skirt. It had been but a loose thread earlier that morning and was quickly turning into a baseball-sized hole.

 

_“But then I told the asshole to stop checking out my ass,” Katya’s voice came through the tinny speakers of Trixie’s phone._

_“Oh my god, Kat,” Trixie cackled._

_“Because I’m not for male consumption, Trixie! And he should know that!” Katya cried indignantly, but not without humor._

_“You’re way too loud to work at a yoga studio,” Trixie teased as she settled in on her couch and pulled a blanket into her lap to combat the cold Indiana winter._

_“I’m perfectly mellow when I’m teaching,” Katya pushed back. “But I won’t stand for gross straight men staring at me!”_

_“That’s fair, you’re right,” Trixie grinned into the phone, unable to keep the joy off her face or out of her voice._

_“Thank you very fucking much.”_

_“Okay, do you have anything else that you’ve been saving for Tuesday Phone Date or can I go?” Trixie asked, practically bouncing right there where she sat._

_“Someone’s eager,” Katya laughed._

_“I wanna tell you something!” Trixie defended._

_“Yeah, alright, go for it,” Katya said, a certain amount of adoration in her voice that wasn’t lost on Trixie, but also wasn’t quite taken into consideration in that moment. “What’s the good news, huh?”_

_“Luke took me to dinner yesterday--” she was cut off by a teasing groan from the other end of the line. “Let me finish!”_

_“Fine, fine,” Katya laughed. “Tell me the whole hetero story.”_

_“We were at the restaurant in Bloomington where we had our first date in college,” Trixie continued, almost giddy. “And he was so sweet all evening, and then he got down on one knee and… And we’re engaged!”_

_The other end of the line was silent for a moment. Trixie could hear her blood rushing in her ears and she wasn’t sure why._

_“Katya,” she continued. “I’m gonna get married!”_

_“For real?” Katya asked quietly._

_“Yes, for real,” Trixie said, brow now furrowed. “Why would I make that up?”_

_“I dunno-- I just,” Katya was floundering, and it was not an experience that Trixie was accustomed to. “Seriously?”_

_“Is that really all you’re gonna say?” Trixie laughed, but there was a beat before Katya spoke up. A mile long cavern between Trixie’s question mark and any sort of breath from Katya’s lips._

_“I don’t know what you_ want _me to say, Trixie,” Katya said, suddenly serious. Trixie felt her heart sink, break, shatter at the bottom of her ribs._

_“I want--” she floundered. “I just want you to be happy for me.”_

_“Bullshit,” Katya deadpanned. “You’re not an idiot. Call your mom if you want someone to be excited about your beard proposing, Trix. Not me.”_

_“Oh, don’t you fucking--”_

_“Call it like it is?” Katya cut her off with equal parts spite and hurt in her voice._

_“Make shit up about my relationship to make yourself feel better about one mistake that you can’t fucking get over--”_

_“You are so far up your own ass, Mattel,” Katya fought back. “If you’re really able to ignore all of the drunken phone calls--”_

_“Fuck off--”_

_“All the late night confessions--”_

_“Katya, I swear to god--”_ _  
_

_“The friendly fucking kisses--”_

_“Shut up!” Trixie yelled as she threw a pillow across the room, as if Katya was there to see it, as if it would do anything other than expel some of the tension in her joints. “Either be happy for me or just shut the fuck up, Kat!”_

_“Trixie, I don’t--”_

_“No, stop that,” Trixie said harshly, glad that Luke wasn’t home that night and instead on a business trip. “You don’t get to ruin this for me with your insecurities about the decisions I’ve made--”_

_“You don’t get to just decide to be straight, Trix,” Katya’s voice was quieter but no less determined._

_“I get to decide what makes me happy,” Trixie said, reprimanding herself for the crack in her words, for the way she still wasn’t denying anything Katya said to her. “And I am. I’m happy.”_

_“Then I’m happy for you,” Katya sighed, defeated. “Can I just ask you one thing?”_

_“I mean, you’re going to either way so get it over with,” Trixie deadpanned, wiping at silent tears as they fell angrily down her cheeks._

_“Do you ever think about it still?”_

_Trixie clenched her jaw and shook her head at the ceiling with tears streaming and lungs tight._

_“I’m having dinner with my mom next Tuesday, so I’ll call you at eight instead of seven, okay?” Trixie deflected, almost able to hear the way Katya deflated on the other end of the phone, miles away but right there in her ear and her head and her heart every day._

_“Okay.”_

 

“Trixie?” Katya said in what was practically a whisper.

“Hmm?” Trixie simply hummed in acknowledgment without looking up.

“Can I ask you something?”

Trixie sat up, caught off guard by the hesitance in Katya’s voice. Where there was usually confidence no matter how absurd the words slipping off her tongue, there was instead a nervous curiosity, almost hope.

“Of course,” Trixie said, voice matching Katya’s volume as if speaking much louder would alert the rest of the world to their not quite inconspicuous hiding spot on the side of the road in a cul-de-sac four blocks from the church where Trixie was supposed to be getting married.

“Why did you run out?” Katya asked simply, eyes already searching Trixie’s stunned face for answers as soon as the words left her mouth.

“Because,” Trixie said without breaking eye contact. “I didn’t want to marry him.”

“Jesus,” Katya dropped her gaze and pinched the bridge of her nose before looking back up with determination. “Why did you _leave,_ Trixie?”

“I told you--”

“Please don’t make me do this alone,” Katya cut her off, voice breaking and pleading.

The water kept dripping, and the ripples kept disrupting their puddle on the other side of the small road. Faster, heavier, more.

“I don’t know,” Trixie whispered, mouth dry.

“Yes, you do,” Katya said.

The water in the rain gutter carried the flower from Trixie’s hair back to bumping against her ankle, pulling Trixie’s attention back to it and away from Katya once more.

 

_The sun was already up when Trixie walked up the driveway, searching her key ring for the newest and shiniest one and opening the front door as quietly as she could._

_Her clothes were rumpled and her hair a mess and the smell of_ new house _was overwhelming as she slipped off her shoes by the front door and tried to silently make her way to the bathroom._

_“Trixie?”_

_“Fuck,” she jumped out of her skin as Luke peeked his head out of the kitchen._

_“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle ya,” he said, stepping all the way out into the entryway and lifting his hands in surrender, one empty and one clutching a spatula._

_“It’s okay,” Trixie brushed him off, heart pounding and hands shaking and just trying to hold herself together. “I just uh-- Thought you’d already be at work?”_

_“Don’t have to go in until this afternoon,” he grinned. “Figured I’d make us breakfast.”_

_“Oh--That’s-- That’s good,” Trixie floundered, arms crossed tight across her chest._

_“Looks like you need it,” Luke chuckled. “Have a pretty wild night with Katya, there? Did she even make her flight this morning?”_

_“What? Nothing-- It wasn’t_ wild, _Luke,” Trixie laughed nervously. “Just haven’t seen her in a while so we um, talked for most of the night.”_

_“Okay, sure,” Luke teased, completely oblivious and seemingly passing all of Trixie’s nervous energy off as a non-existent hangover. “You go shower and I’ll have your veggie omelette done by the time you’re out.”_

_Trixie just nodded and turned to hurry towards the bathroom._

_“Love you!” he called out after her and she barely held in her sob until after the bathroom door was closed._

_Trixie cried in the shower, trying to scrub off the confusion and guilt, the rightness and total wrongness clinging to her skin as fat tears rolled down her cheeks._

_She used her boyfriend’s saline eye drops to try and look less like she had been crying, but figured he already thought she was hungover, so maybe she should just go with it._

_They ate breakfast together and Luke left for work and Trixie unlocked her phone for the first time that morning._

please call me, trix. i want to talk about this

_Trixie collapsed onto the couch in the middle of her new living room with boxes still lining the walls and a television that hadn’t been plugged in or set up yet. She clutched her phone and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before typing out a response._

there’s nothing to talk about.

_She tossed her phone to the other side of the room as she stood up and opened a box._

_Trixie began to unpack._

 

“Just talk it out with me,” Katya said, placing a hand in Trixie’s lap and lacing the fingers of their hands together, warm skin against cold.

“There’s nothing to talk out, Katya,” Trixie shook her head and pulled her hand away, standing up on unsteady legs, balls of her feet digging into loose gravel painfully but feeling deserved at that point in time.

“You were ready to _marry_ him,” Katya stood up quickly, watching Trixie snatch her shoes off the ground and begin walking down the wet sidewalk, dodging worms and puddles the best she could. “Jesus Christ,” Katya muttered, chasing after her.

“People are allowed to change their minds,” Trixie said as Katya matched stride next to her. “I changed my fucking mind, okay?”

“I get that,” Katya said with exasperation. “But I want to know _why.”_

“Ever think that maybe that’s none of your business?” Trixie spat, not even able to look at Katya out of the corner of her eye as they reached the end of the block and had to choose which direction to walk down the main road of town.

She was hyper-aware that everyone in that town knew who she was, knew what she had done, and wouldn’t have any sympathy for the woman in a gray and brown wedding dress walking barefoot down the street.

“Trixie, come on--”

“No, Katya!” Trixie yelled, turning to face her where they were standing on the corner, a stop sign to her left and a field of corn on the opposite side of the street. “You obviously know why I didn’t go through with it. Fuck, we _both know_ why I didn’t go through with it, so could you just let it rest for a goddamn _minute--”_

“You’ve never said it though, Trixie!” Katya yelled back with equal fervor. “How can I know until you’ve _told me?”_

“I know that this day doesn’t mean anything to you,” Trixie threw up her hands indignantly, still clutching onto her shoes. “But I was supposed to get _married--”_

“To a man you didn’t _love--”_

“Even if I didn’t love Luke, he was still a friend!” Trixie cried out, tears beginning to spill in thick drops down her already rain-wet face. “Even if I didn’t love him, I still humiliated him in front of our friends and family today! I still lied to him for years! I’m still the dyke whore that cheated on him with my best friend two weeks after we moved in together! Give me a fucking _minute,_ Katya.”

Trixie let out a thick sob and dropped her heels with a heavy thud into the grass next to her. Katya just stood there silently for a beat, grateful for the first time in her life that their town was as low-traffic as it was so no one would drive by and see the scene they were causing.

She closed her eyes briefly and took a breath, absorbing the sound of Trixie sobbing before she opened them again.

“Can I hug you?” she asked softly, all anger gone from her voice and stance and self.

Trixie just nodded through her tears and Katya immediately took the step forward necessary to wrap her best friend up in a hug, letting Trixie cry all her makeup off onto Katya’s white shirt and running a hand up and down the lacing on the back of her dress.

“Shhh,” Katya hushed quietly into Trixie’s tangled hair, still being held in clumps by stray bobby pins here and there.

“I have to apologize to him,” Trixie muttered through tears against Katya’s shoulder.

“You will,” Katya assured her. “Maybe not right now, but you will.”

Trixie’s fingers dug harshly into Katya’s shoulder blades, finding comfort in the embrace despite all the guilt. Trixie didn’t pull away as Katya’s phone began to ring, making her pull it out of her pocket and glance down at the screen with one hand still holding Trixie close.

“It’s Shea,” she said.

“You should answer,” Trixie replied without making any move towards releasing her grip on Katya.

“Hey,” Katya said, still speaking quietly but with a distinctly different tone than the one she used to talk with Trixie. “Yeah, I’ve got her, she’s safe-- I’m gonna try and take her back to the house--”

Trixie’s head shot up and she looked at Katya, watched the woman who continued to stare at the grass as she spoke into her phone.

“Oh, fuck,” Katya muttered and let out a tense breath. “Yeah, okay, I’ll figure something out. Text me with any updates.”

“What’s wrong?” Trixie asked the minute that Katya hung up the phone and tucked it back away in her pocket.

“Lots of wedding stuff at your house,” Katya explained. “Shea is there now, packing up as much of it as she can, but a couple of the groomsmen are-- um, they’re also there-- so…”

“So I probably shouldn’t go home,” Trixie finished with a teary, humorless laugh. And then, as it began to sprinkle once more: “Wow. Fucking perfect.”

It was raining, it wouldn’t stop raining, and she didn’t want to have to _put up_ with it anymore.

“Come on, I’ll take you back to my hotel,” Katya said as her bangs were dampened by the rain and laid flat against her forehead once more.

“I don’t wanna--”

“I’m not trying to fucking seduce you, Mattel,” Katya sighed. “Just let me lend you some dry clothes so you can get out of that goddamn dress.”

Trixie let out a huff of a breath and looked down at herself-- the true image of _pathetic_.

“Fine.”

 

_“Wow,” Trixie gasped, eyes wide and glimmering with the light of the fireworks reflecting in them._

_“You’re so easily impressed,” Katya chuckled. They were sprawled out on a blanket atop a grassy hill, far from the crowds but with just as good a view of the Fourth of July spectacle being put on by the church below._

_“It’s probably the drugs you peer pressured me into,” Trixie responded, turning her head just as Katya took a hit off the joint in her hand and offered it up to Trixie once more._

_“Teenagers are supposed to make stupid choices sometimes,” Katya said through the smoke as she blew it up towards the night sky. “You’ve gone seventeen years without doing anything stupid--”_

_“Except being your friend, of course,” Trixie cut her off. Katya’s jaw dropped and she looked at Trixie with a baffled expression before bursting out into laughter so hard it had her coughing in seconds. “Oof, that must be the emphysema.”_

_“You’re a bitch, Trixie Mattel,” Katya shoved her arm playfully just as another round of bright red fireworks lit up the sky._

_“I’m your favorite person,” Trixie grinned back at her, marveling at the way Katya’s eyes looked somehow bigger in the light, her lips fuller._

_Katya just shrugged in response, but she turned over onto her side and rested her head on Trixie’s chest._

_Trixie wrapped her arms tight around Katya and wondered if she could feel her heart pounding._

 

“And one cheese pizza to go with that, please,” Katya said, sitting on the edge of the bed with the hotel landline pressed to her ear. “Thanks.”

“I told you, I’m not hungry,” Trixie deadpanned as she hung up.

She had showered and dried her hair to a point of damp frizziness, borrowed a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt from Katya’s suitcase, and was now curled up in a moderately uncomfortable arm chair on the other side of the room just so she wouldn’t have to sit on the bed next to Katya.

She had shoved her wedding dress haphazardly into the closet and shut the door, letting the gray lace and gray areas mingle in the darkness while she tried to find some clarity in the lamplight of the small room.

“I don’t care,” Katya shrugged. “You haven’t eaten in, like, two days. Take the stupid pizza.”

Trixie chewed on her tongue and stared at the outdated, patterned carpet on the floor. She could feel Katya’s eyes on her, could feel people all over town talking about her and telling her story without her consent and without acknowledgment for her side.

It made her skin itch.

She was at the eye of this particular hurricane, the point of conception for the whole goddamn mess, and the silence of that hotel room felt unsettling. The whirring of the air conditioner buzzed at a frequency that didn’t agree with that of her brain and Katya’s eyes were still _on_ her and Trixie had no idea what to _do_ about any of it.

“I don’t want to fight with you anymore,” Trixie ultimately said, not looking up and barely loud enough to be considered anything more than a whisper, but speaking up nonetheless.

“Then let’s not fight,” Katya said simply, crossing her legs underneath her and facing Trixie from the bed.

She rolled the sleeves of the sweatshirt she had changed into up to her elbows and let her hands fall into her lap.

Trixie let her mind wander through the day leading up to this moment, how she had been scared out of her mind in ways it took her longer than it should have to realize that happy nerves and fearful ones were very different things.

“Shit,” she muttered to herself.

“What can I do?” Katya spoke up, immediately looking for any sort of way to make the both of them less miserable.

“My whole purse is still at the church,” Trixie groaned. “My phone and wallet and shit is all still there. Could you-- I mean, can you just make sure Shea knows to grab it?”

“On it,” Katya nodded, already typing out a message on her phone while Trixie bit at her fingernails, chipping the polish beyond any sort of salvageable state.

“My mom has probably been calling me all day,” Trixie said absentmindedly. “She’s gonna be so upset.”

“You can call her if you want,” Katya held up her phone in offering. “But we can also put that particular issue off a bit longer.”

Trixie chewed at her lip and looked at her hands in her lap. She picked at the skin around her fingernails as a crack of thunder shook the room, followed shortly after by a flash of lightning casting Katya’s shadow up against the pale wall.

“Y’know,” Trixie said softly, not quite to Katya but to no one but Katya. Never to anyone but Katya. “I asked her about my dad this morning.”

“Okay,” Katya responded, hesitant and quiet and not quite certain what to say.

“I wanted to know if there were any red flags, right?” Trixie explained, looking up at Katya briefly before dropping her gaze once more. “And, like, she knew-- She _knew_ that something about that relationship wasn’t going to work but she went through with it anyway.”

Katya just nodded when Trixie looked up at her again, almost as if she was searching for reassurance that she should keep going.

She got it, and so she did.

“She was so certain that Luke and I were going to work-- That he was the _one_ and that this was the right move,” Trixie rambled onwards. “But then I was walking down the aisle with her and he was waiting there for me and everyone was _watching,_ and all of a sudden I just _knew.”_

“What did you know?” Katya asked, finally speaking up.

“That it wasn’t right,” Trixie said with the tonality of someone that was having an epiphany. “That I couldn’t do it, because I was walking towards this _perfect_ man and the only one up there that I wanted to look at was _you.”_

The words tumbled out so quietly that they would have been drown out by the ever-growing storm outside if Katya hadn’t been listening as intently as she was, ears and heart wide open and waiting.

Katya looked like she was holding her breath, waiting for Trixie to finish, so she continued.

“When I told you that I was engaged, you asked me if I ever thought about it-- That night?”

“Yeah,” Katya breathed. “I did.”

“It’s the only thing I’ve thought about for two and a half years,” Trixie said simply, casually, as if it wasn’t a monumental step in her backwards life.

“Fuck,” Katya muttered, standing up and shaking out her hands, radiating nervous energy.

“Kat, I--”

“Nope,” Katya shook her head and pointed a finger at Trixie. “If you’re just saying all of this because of what today is, or because-- because you’re emotional or upset or-- Just, stop. I don’t want to-- I can’t hear it if this is just for today.”

“I’ve spent my entire life pretending to be someone I’m not so I could make everyone else more comfortable,” Trixie shook her head. “I can’t do that anymore.”

“What are you saying, Trixie?” Katya said with a ghost of a breath hanging in the air in front of her, in the space still hanging between the two of them in that small room.

“I haven’t always been great at being honest with you—”

“You’ve always been honest with me,” Katya said. “It’s yourself you’ve been lying to. I mean, nothing is more honest than you letting me give you three orgasms at a Hilton and enthusiastically returning the favor. Stone cold sober,” she let out a breath of a laugh at the way Trixie blushed.

“I think you’ve always been it for me,” Trixie said with shaky certainty. “I think I’ve just always—”

A knock on the door cut her off, and the two women shared a look before Katya strode across the room, brushing a hand over Trixie’s shoulder on her way to the door.

The clattering of the room service cart and the small talk that Katya made with the delivery person broke some of the tension that had been steadily building up, somehow reminding the both of them that there was a world outside of their little bubble of heightened feelings and held breaths.

“Here’s yours,” Katya said once the door was closed and it was just them once more. She set a small pizza box on the desk next to Trixie, who just watched her as she settled in on the edge of the bed with her own chicken strips.

“Katya, are we gonna keep talking about this?” Trixie asked with confusion dripping from her every word at how casual everything was all of a sudden.

“We have all night,” Katya shrugged, but not without a weight to her words. “And you should really eat something,” she motioned to the pizza still untouched in front of Trixie.

Trixie nodded, looked at the pizza box, looked back at Katya, hesitated.

Katya was just happily eating in silence, the sound of the rain the only thing filling up the room. Trixie studied Katya, her long fingers and her bare face, the way she kept her feet tucked underneath her without any discomfort and the ragged sweatshirt she’d been wearing since high school.

Trixie made a choice in that moment, picked up her pizza box, put it on the cart beside Katya’s food, and sat down on the edge of the bed next to her.

She ignored the clearly identifiable intake of breath from Katya’s side of the bed, the way Katya looked at her as she opened the box and dug in.

She really had been starving.

When she looked up to catch Katya’s soft gaze, mouth still full of pizza, she wasn’t quite sure what to say.

“Wanna watch a movie?” she said with her mouth full and motioning to the television in front of them.

Katya snorted, a relieved laugh that made Trixie smile and reach for the remote.

“You choose,” she handed it over to Katya.

“You’re just full of surprises today,” Katya murmured with amusement.

 

_“Wait, I need your help picking a color,” Katya stumbled off of her chair in the tiny screen on Trixie’s laptop._

_“Do you even own anything that isn’t black?” Trixie teased, cooking dinner for her boyfriend on the other end of the video chat._

_“First of all, fuck you,” Katya peeked back in at the edge of the frame and Trixie cackled as she chopped an onion. “And second of all: do I need to diversify my closet more? Be honest.”_

_“I mean, it really is very goth,” Trixie said. “But I like it. It suits you.”_

_“Thank god,” Katya huffed. “I don’t have the budget for a diversified wardrobe.”_

_“Then why did you even ask?” Trixie laughed._

_“I’m sorry that I want you to think I’m cool, you bitch,” Katya grinned at her before holding up two black blouses. “Fringe or no fringe?”_

_“Depends on the context,” Trixie shrugged._

_“Date with a dyke,” Katya explained. “But not like a formal date, more of a ‘I really need to get fucked’ date, y’know?”_

_Trixie rolled her eyes and ignored the sinking in her chest as she chopped carrots a little more aggressively than necessary, engagement ring hanging on the chain around her neck where she kept it while she cooked._

_“No fringe,” she said simply. “It’ll just get in the way.”_

_“God bless you, Trixie Mattel,” Katya let out a sigh of relief._

_“I gotta go-- Have fun tonight, you big homo,” Trixie teased, a little less lightness to her voice than there had been just minutes earlier._

_“Oh, I will!”_

 

By the time the movie was over-- some animated children’s film that neither of them had paid all that much attention to-- the room service cart was pushed to the side and they were both curled up under the plush covers, leaning into the headboard and each other.

Katya’s head rested on Trixie’s shoulder and for a moment it felt like they were nineteen years old again, back before Trixie became afraid of showing physical affection for her best friend, back before she learned to be afraid of who she was.

The credits rolled in their entirety and the television reverted back to the hotel’s home screen before either of them made any moves to leave that space, that moment in time that felt so natural.

“What happens now?” Trixie eventually asked, murmuring into Katya’s hair.

“I guess now we have to finish talking, huh?” Katya responded as she pushed herself up to look Trixie fully in the eye.

“Yeah,” Trixie laughed softly. “I guess so.”

“Can I go first?” Katya sat back on her heels, facing Trixie who shifted onto her hip and rested her shoulder against the headboard.

“Take it away.”

“I owe you an apology,” Katya said definitively. Trixie’s eyes got bigger and she sat up straighter, not having expected that. “I just-- I push you. I always push you to do things before you’re ready because I feel like I know what’s best, but I _don’t._ I don’t get to decide what speed you take things at, and I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” Trixie said, a certain amount of disbelief in her tone at the turn their conversation had taken.

“You’re my-- My best friend,” Katya continued, stumbling slightly. “You deserve so much better.”

“Kat,” Trixie placed a hand on top of Katya’s on the mattress. “Maybe you didn’t go about it the right way, but you always _were_ right. About all of it. And I might not have meant to, but I’ve been pulling you around for years. Always giving you a clear answer but never _actually giving you_ a clear answer to all of it.”

“We’ve both been pretty messy, huh?” Katya smiled softly and Trixie shook her head with a small laugh.

“I’ve been so jealous of you for so long,” she admitted.

“What? Why?”

“You’re so fearless--”

“That’s not true,” Katya shook her head.

“We both dreamed of getting out of this town, but you actually _did_ it,” Trixie insisted. “We both had so many plans for the future and you’re the one that actually went for all of them,” she hesitated, chewed on her words. “We’re both massive fucking lesbians, but you’re the one that was brave enough to come out.”

Katya’s big eyes softened and Trixie could almost see tears forming in them, glistening with something like hope.

The rain outside began to subside, and droplets of water clung to the window as the clouds began to part.

At the sound of her phone ringing, Katya groaned, collapsing back against the headboard as Trixie reached for the cell on the nightstand.

“It’s Shea, you should get it,” Trixie said, handing it over. Katya obliged.

“Hey, I’m with Trix so I’m gonna put you on speaker, okay?” Katya said, holding the phone up in between the two of them.

“Hey, girlie,” Shea said on the other end of the line. “How’re you holding up?”

“Oh, y’know,” Trixie deadpanned. “Just feeling the usual runaway bride feelings: guilt, freedom, more guilt.”

“Well, if it helps, I got most of the wedding stuff out of your house,” Shea said.

“How?” Trixie exclaimed. “Where did you put all of it?”

“Um, currently it’s living in the trunk of my car--”

“Shea!”

“But we’ll find homes for it, I promise!”

“If there are any of those chocolate things left, I’ll take them,” Katya chimed in and Trixie rolled her eyes.

“I’ve already eaten like seven if we’re being honest,” Shea laughed. “Those groomsmen have been driving me up the goddamn wall all day.”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Trixie sighed. “I didn’t mean for all of this to fall on your shoulders.”

“Hey, I’ll take any chance to put a couple of frat boys in their place,” Shea said goodnaturedly.

“Thank you,” Trixie said genuinely as Katya placed a hand on her knee and squeezed.

“The place is empty now,” Shea said. “I kicked everyone out. And your phone is charging in the kitchen, although if I were you I’d avoid checking that one for as long as possible. I had to turn it off because it wouldn’t stop ringing.”

“Fuck,” Trixie muttered. “I really messed this one up.”

“Girl,” Shea said, no-nonsense. “If you of all people were willing to make a scene like that to get out of marrying him, I really don’t think you should’ve sucked it up and gone through with it.”

“Thanks, Shea,” Trixie said sincerely.

“Call me if you need me, okay?” Shea insisted. “I’m not afraid to beat Brad the sports writer into next Tuesday.”

Trixie was left smiling when they finally hung up with Shea, knowing that no matter how everyone else reacted to the whole situation that she clearly still had people on her side, a support system that had been there for her for years and wasn’t disappearing any time soon.

Katya drove the two of them to the house that Trixie and Luke had shared.

It wasn’t very big, but it was nice enough and she had always found comfort inside of its walls. But this time when she stepped inside, it felt different. Everything was pretty much exactly where she had left it-- books on the coffee table and photos hung on the walls-- but standing there with Katya waiting patiently behind her, it didn’t feel like home anymore.

The first stop she made was to the kitchen, and the moment she turned on her phone it was lit up with dozens of notifications, an overwhelming number to someone who preferred to keep the little red bubbles to a minimum.

There were voicemails from her mother, from confused friends and family. Text messages asking if she was okay-- if the wedding was being postponed-- if she was sick. One single text from Luke, asking her to call him. Whenever she got the chance.

Trixie was almost angry that he was being the most polite of anyone, almost wished he would yell and scream just so she could yell and scream right back at him. For making her comfortable enough to consider settling in a life that she didn’t want, would never _want._

She collapsed onto the couch next to where Katya had perched herself, fiddling with a Rubik’s cube she had found without actually trying to solve it.

Trixie was silent and Katya looked at her, took her and the phone clutched in her hand into account before speaking up.

“This house is beautiful,” Katya said. “I don’t think I ever told you that, but you did an incredible job decorating it.”

“There are too many coasters,” Trixie deadpanned, furrowing her brow at the coffee table in front of her. “We never had people over, I don’t know why I bought so many fucking coasters.”

Katya rested a hand on top of Trixie’s where she gripped her still-buzzing phone with white knuckles.

“Where are you gonna go?” she asked softly.

“I want an apartment,” Trixie said with a quiet certainty. “I’m almost thirty and I’ve never lived alone. I’m gonna get a one bedroom apartment with a tiny kitchen and one stupid fucking coaster.”

“I guess that’s fine,” Katya shrugged. “I’ve never used a coaster in my life anyways.”

Trixie let out a surprised bubble of a laugh at that, one that caught her off guard as it made its way out of her chest and into the world. Her eyes met Katya’s and found more love there than she knew what to do with, more love than could fit in her heart and lungs and gut combined and had her overflowing with a sudden certainty.

She turned so her leg was pressed up against Katya’s thigh, so they were closer together in ways they had been dozens of times before but felt so different now, so _possible._

“I want to kiss you so bad right now,” Trixie whispered, the words slipping out before she bothered to censor them. She didn’t care.

“Trixie--”  
  
“I’m not just saying that,” Trixie shook her head definitively.

“I know you aren’t,” Katya breathed, forehead almost bumping Trixie’s with how close they had gotten during the short exchange. “But you’re gonna regret it if you don’t call him before we do this.”

“I thought you supported recklessness,” Trixie cocked her head to the side as she sat back a couple of inches.

“I support you smoking weed every once in a while because it makes you giggly and I support you cutting your own hair,” Katya laughed softly. “But I don’t think we should be reckless with this. Do you?”

“No,” Trixie said seriously. “I’m all in.”

Katya lit up, squeezed Trixie’s hand that was still holding her phone, and lifted it to her lips to press a chaste kiss to her knuckles.

“I’ll be right outside,” Trixie said as she stood up.

“I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

The brick of the front porch was still damp from the storm but Trixie was too preoccupied to really care as she sat down. She stared at Luke’s contact information in her phone for a moment, had had the number memorized since college but never typed it in manually.

She could feel Katya’s presence through the front door and across the hall, still playing with a Rubik’s cube and not touching anything because despite everything, she felt guilty too. Despite how little either of them had wanted to hurt anyone, to hurt Luke or each other, they both knew that they had and that they needed to be better.

They knew that being together wouldn’t solve everything and they knew that it might not ever work out, but they cared more for each other than anyone else in the entire world, and because of that, they also knew they needed to give themselves a shot at happiness. Together.

The dial tone reverberating through the speaker was accompanied by the blood rushing in her ears and the rhythmic bouncing of her anxious knee.

“Trixie,” he answered, exhaustion, relief, and hurt all mingling in the way he said her name.

“Hi,” she responded quietly. “How are you?” she cringed at the question, immediately regretting it.

“Not great, Tee,” he sighed.

“I am so sorry,” Trixie said. “I need you to know that this isn’t because of anything you’ve done. This is all on me and you can tell people that and--”

“Slow down, would you?”

“Sorry,” she rested an elbow on her knee and let her face rest in her hand.

“Y’know, I’m just as mad at myself as I am at you right now,” he said. “Because I fucking knew that you didn’t love me the same way I love you.”

“What do you mean?” Trixie furrowed her brow.

“You loved me, sure,” Luke continued. “But we were together long enough for me to realize you were never _in love_ with me. That I would never be enough for you.”

“It’s not that, Luke--”

“Then what is it? Why would you sprint out of the church like that?”

He was hurt. She didn’t blame him.

“I wanted to love you,” Trixie said, almost choking on the words with how thick her throat felt.

“That’s not an answer,” he replied simply.

“I’ve made so many mistakes,” Trixie continued, tears beginning to spill down her cheeks. “And I am so, so incredibly sorry.”

“Trixie--”

“I’m gay, Luke,” she cut him off before she lost the gall to say it. “It was never about you, because you are a phenomenal man who would have made a better husband than I ever deserved. I used you because I was scared of what would happen if I was honest with myself, and I can’t apologize enough for that.”

“Jesus Christ,” he sighed. Not angry, not surprised, just a little bit broken.

“I should have done this so long ago,” Trixie cried. “I never meant to break your heart like this.”

“You’re gay,” he said, a simple statement.

“Yes,” Trixie acknowledged.

“Did you ever-- I mean,” he let out a frustrated sound. “Did you ever cheat on me with a woman, Trixie?”

A beat.

“Yes.”

“Katya?”

He asked so quickly, jumped there so quickly that it almost caught Trixie off guard, would have if she hadn’t spent the entire day leading up to that point thinking about how this conversation was going to work.

“Yes,” she said definitively.

“And you don’t regret it?”

“I regret not breaking up with you when we were still kids,” Trixie explained. “When we were still figuring ourselves out. I think we might have made really good friends if I hadn’t been such a coward.”

“I can’t pretend like I feel even remotely friendly towards you right now,” he said.

“I know,” Trixie nodded to herself, wiping away tears from bright red cheeks and watching the setting sun glimmer in the puddles littering the street in front of her.

“But, Tee,” he let out a breath of a chuckle. “At least we don’t have to deal with divorce lawyers.”

“Yeah,” Trixie let out a teary laugh. “There’s that.”

“What are you going to do next?” he asked. “Are you staying at the house?”

“I’m picking some stuff up, but I think,” she hesitated and chewed on her lip. “I think it’s about time I left this town. Started working again.”

“Good luck,” Luke said, and it almost felt genuine.

“Thank you,” Trixie replied, entirely genuine from start to finish. “You’re gonna make some straight girl very happy one day.”

Luke let out a bitter huff of a laugh.

“Too soon?” Trixie asked.

“Maybe a bit,” he said. “Goodbye, Trixie.”

“Goodbye.”

And then he was gone, and Trixie stopped crying.

She dipped her bare big toe into a puddle at the bottom of the steps, watching the ripple circle out and grow larger until it settled once more. Calm water reflecting orange sunlight.

She stood up and went back inside.

Trixie felt like she had wasted so much time, was tired of appeasing people she didn’t care about in a town she didn’t want to be in any longer. Sure, she knew she had made a lot of mistakes and hadn’t gone about _any_ of this in an adult, mature manner, but she _was_ certain that it had been the right call.

Because she was tired of locking herself in boxes where she didn’t belong.

Essentially, Trixie Mattel was done wasting time, and that became clear when she sat on the couch next to Katya, gently took the Rubik’s cube out of her hands, and kissed her softly on the mouth.

Katya hummed in surprise but didn’t hesitate in kissing her back and Trixie didn’t care how inappropriate it was to be doing this on the day she was meant to be getting married. Her hair was frizzing up in the humidity of a stormy Midwestern day and she held Katya’s face in her hands with more care than she’d ever put towards her engagement.

Katya pulled away with a small, happy hum and looked Trixie in the eye with her hands clutching her waist.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” Katya asked, breath a little labored.

The sun was setting, her wedding dress was crumpled on the floor of a hotel closet, and Trixie almost couldn’t believe that she had that option.

“More than anything,” she breathed.

Just saying it alone felt a lot more like freedom than she’d ever really known and it was in that moment Trixie Mattel decided she was done lying to herself.

Maybe it was time to embraced the storm.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> leave a comment if you're into that or come say hi to me on tumblr @ ourforgottenboleros, i'd appreciate it a whole bunch <3


End file.
